Eat Medieval: A Taste of Christmas Past Online Cookery School

This is a time-travelling culinary journey to Christmas past. Chefs from Blackfriars Restaurant and academics from Durham University and further afield will help you make your own medieval Christmas feast.

Medieval food was sophisticated with a wonderful mixture of local ingredients and spices from the caravans and traders across the Steppes, the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean.

We take the record of the Bishop of Hereford's Christmas Feast of 1296 as a starting point: wild boar, partridge, beef, goose, and venison (with plenty of substitutions and vegetarian alternatives), and to these we'll add recipes for sweet treats and spiced wine - Clary. A number of these can be drawn from an almost exact contemporary recipe collection from England; others we will take from slightly later collections.

We'll explain the primary medieval recipe, the chefs will then show you their own modern interpretations inspired by the original with a little Christmas magic sprinkled over for good measure. And there will be explanatory films on Christmas in medieval literature, its customs, practice, and significance, as well as a close-up on the Christmas Feast of 1296. Come and join us and give your Christmas table something a little different this year!

Blackfriars is the perfect venue for the course. Housed in the medieval buildings of a Dominican Priory, chefs Chris and Craig, and owner Andy Hook, join forces with Professor Giles Gasper and colleagues from Durham University and further afield, to bring you this Taste of Christmas Past.